Contemporary threats to free speech

[chownah]

Hate speech, to me, means nasty, disparaging, prejudiced remarks.

Perhaps your definition is too narrow. Your definition being narrow helps you to "win" in some "debates" by allowing you to ignore the serious issues and only deal with the superficial. The danger of using this narrow definition (especially by using it without clearly stating that you are using a restricted definition) is that if you are successful in "winning" the "debate" then this will influence other people to take up the idea that hate speech is harmless but these people might apply it to all hate speech and not just the narrow definition you use. ONe of the big dangers of hate speech is its tendency to escalate. ONe of the ways that hate is propogated (perhaps it is the only way?) is through hate speech.
chownah

[L.N.]

I see no benefit to be derived from legislating against hate speech, for three reasons: one, it achieves nothing material beyond legislation against incitement to violence, two, it shifts the domain of evidence from the material to the emotional, which, as I stated above, is not an adequate standard, and three (related to two), it encourages the notion that emotional or subjective experience is of the same substance as intersubjectively accessible material evidence.

I tend to agree with this. However, I think that depending on the country and/or the territory, there may be a proper and justifiable reason for regulating speech conduct. But I tend to agree with you and Justice Scalia (RIP) that legislating against hate speech is counter to the principles of freedom of speech and an open marketplace of ideas.

Also, the internal physical pain accompanied by hearing hateful words directed at you (e.g., calling someone the "n" word) can be just as unpleasant or even more so than the physical pain of a punch in the mouth.

Yes, painful, but fundamentally different from physical injury. When one is punched, one has no choice but to suffer the pain and damage. But when someone says something hurtful, in that case the pain is a result of our interpretation.

Physical pain can work this way, too. Some people experience a greater degree of physical pain when physically injured because of emotional/interpretive reasons.

No one is responsible for the mental and emotional events of another. That is the essence of karma, surely?

Correct, yet this does not mean we are incapable of harming others. This is why the Dhamma teaches taking personal responsibility for one's words/actions and the potential effect on others.

"Having done a bodily action, you should reflect on it: 'This bodily action I have done — did it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Was it an unskillful bodily action, with painful consequences, painful results?' If, on reflection, you know that it led to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it was an unskillful bodily action with painful consequences, painful results, then you should confess it, reveal it, lay it open to the Teacher or to a knowledgeable companion in the holy life. Having confessed it... you should exercise restraint in the future. But if on reflection you know that it did not lead to affliction... it was a skillful bodily action with pleasant consequences, pleasant results, then you should stay mentally refreshed & joyful, training day & night in skillful mental qualities.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

In my opinion, we should not under-estimate the power of words to hurt others.

I quite agree, but Right Speech cannot be enforced by law.

Correct, the practice of Right Speech is to be adopted for oneself. Right Speech can be a topic for discussion (and I have attempted to make it a topic of discussion in various Topics I have created). I think on a discussion board devoted to discussing Dhamma, we can address one another regarding what is Right Speech, in a spirit of friendship and mutual respect, without trying to "enforce" it, except to the extent the Team enforces TOS.

[Mr Man]

So the Dhamma Wheel team (I presume they are acting as a team) are now using the terms and conditions to close down open discussion.

Was this topic so scary and are members so precious that it could not be allowed to stand? Is this level of censorship really needed here?

What is up with all the fringe, alt-right commentary peppered throughout DW?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=30698

[binocular]

Not if the hate speech riles up a group of people so much that they feel justified in physically attacking others. Also, the internal physical pain accompanied by hearing hateful words directed at you (e.g., calling someone the "n" word) can be just as unpleasant or even more so than the physical pain of a punch in the mouth.

In my opinion, we should not under-estimate the power of words to hurt others.

The example with the n-word illustrates very well that there is more to speech than just the words uttered.

When a black person calls another black person the n-word, there is nothing offensive in that and neither of them perceives it as offensive.

It's only when a white person calls a black person the n-word that the n-word becomes offensive.

[binocular]

No one is responsible for the mental and emotional events of another. That is the essence of karma, surely?

This kind of individualism, even if it is true, is corrosive to social cohesion.

The term "hate speech" recognizes that there are accepted social norms, including acceptance of others regardless of race, color, or creed, and that speech which broadly disparages blacks, Muslims, homosexuals, the disabled, etc. should be recognized for what it is. It is speech that tends to fuel hatred.

I agree. And that hatred can then lead to action.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but hate speech never harmed anyone?

Precisely. Hate speech hurt your feelings, but it was the stick which broke your bones. Difference is, what is hateful to one, is not to another, whereas the stick always hurts.

This leads to another important difference. In the case of the stick being used, the evidence is empirical: if there is no bruising or abrasion, then it hasn't been used to inflict harm. In the case of hate speech, the evidence is usually someone's claim that they felt hated.

I think that focusing on "hurting other people's feelings" is misleading. Hate speech isn't about "hurting other people's feelings"; it's about enforcing socio-economic, racial, religious etc. segregation/discrimination.

Diverting attention to the notion of "hurting other people's feelings" (and how everyone is responsible for their own feelings etc.) is a convenient way to divert attention from issues of segregation/discrimination. Which are pervasive and difficult to resolve.

[Pseudobabble]

Hate speech isn't about "hurting other people's feelings"; it's about enforcing socio-economic, racial, religious etc. segregation/discrimination.

I think you conflate speech and action. A person can say hateful things without in any sense forcing (enforcing) anyone to do anything. Except perhaps listen, but even then, you can't always make people listen to you.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Mr Man,

So the Dhamma Wheel team (I presume they are acting as a team) are now using the terms and conditions to close down open discussion.

Moderation in accordance with the Terms of Service is what we do, and this has been explained to you repeatedly, and it has even been explained to you in this topic itself. The reason for the topic closure was clearly articulated, in keeping with the conditions of the forum in question.

Either way, this isn't the place for your meta-discussion, so...



Metta,
Paul.

[binocular]

Hate speech isn't about "hurting other people's feelings"; it's about enforcing socio-economic, racial, religious etc. segregation/discrimination.

I think you conflate speech and action. A person can say hateful things without in any sense forcing (enforcing) anyone to do anything. Except perhaps listen, but even then, you can't always make people listen to you.

Last I checked, speech is action.

[Pseudobabble]

Hate speech isn't about "hurting other people's feelings"; it's about enforcing socio-economic, racial, religious etc. segregation/discrimination.

I think you conflate speech and action. A person can say hateful things without in any sense forcing (enforcing) anyone to do anything. Except perhaps listen, but even then, you can't always make people listen to you.

Last I checked, speech is action.

And yet the two have differences from one another, can be distinguished from one another, and can be contrasted with each other. Action need not be consistent with speech, for example. The domains of their respective effects overlap, but are not identical. I agree speech is a form of action, but to avoid differentiating them is to obscure relevant differences.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Vietnamese Blogger Gets 7 Years in Jail for Reporting on Toxic Spill

A chemical spill that devastated the coast of central Vietnam last year claimed another casualty on Monday when a 22-year-old blogger was sentenced to seven years in prison for posting reports on the disaster.

After a brief, closed trial in Ha Tinh Province, the blogger, Nguyen Van Hoa, was found guilty of spreading anti-state propaganda for producing videos and writing about protests over the toxic spill, news agencies reported.

The discharge, which occurred when a new Taiwan-owned steel factory flushed cyanide and other chemicals through its waste pipeline, killed marine life and sickened people along a 120-mile stretch of coastline. It is one of Vietnam’s largest environmental disasters.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, denounced the verdict. “The sentencing of Nguyen Van Hoa shows how profoundly the government’s paranoid desire to maintain political control trumps notions of justice and human rights,” he said.

He added: “How else can one explain that executives of an international firm that poisoned the ocean, ruining the coastal economy in four provinces, are free to go about their business while this idealistic young journalist is heading to prison for helping expose their misdeeds?”

Metta,
Paul.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Antifa Australia Goes For The Jugular

The first rule of antifa is you do not talk about antifa. Not to a journalist, at any rate. It is less an organisation than a broad objective across the radical left; a determination to block, frustrate and ultimately silence far-right politics. It is fundamentally illiberal and necessarily secretive. For these reasons, it is poorly understood and readily mischaracterised.

Antifa activists are not mindless thugs. They are well organised and, generally, experienced political and social activists who are prepared to resort to violence — they say reluctantly — to deny the far right any platform from which to promote its ideas. In Melbourne and Sydney this week, they mobilised more than 100 supporters within an hour to shout down a speaking event by the alt-right’s* charismatic bomb thrower, Milo Yiannopoulos.

Yiannopoulos was not stopped from having his say but the fact he was unwilling to publicise the locations of his shows in advance is being celebrated as a victory of sorts across Australia’s anti-fascist network. The morning after anti-fascist activists and right-wing “patriots” traded blows on the streets of Kensington and police were pelted with rocks, the group that organised the Melbourne protest, the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, heralded it as a success.

...

The antifa doctrine on violence, justified loosely as a form of first-strike, preventive defence, is summed up for Bray in this billboard quote from Murray, an Anti-Racist Action member in Baltimore: “You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.”

The contention here is that antifa resorts to violence only when earlier tactics fail to achieve its aims. If this were true, and if antifa were fighting only Nazis, many people wouldn’t have a problem with the occasional push turning to shove. There is a reason we laugh during The Blues Brothers when Elwood guns his Dodge Monaco across a bridge and forces a hapless band of Illinois Nazis to leap into the river. There is a reason the blood-spattered scenes in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds seem a little less gratuitous when it is a Nazi skull meeting a baseball bat. There is a reason footage of American white supremacist Richard Spencer getting punched in the face on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration went viral. After all, they’re Nazis.

...

A problem for the Australian antifa, and indeed for anti-fascist groups in Europe and the US, is that few people and organisations they oppose here have much to do with Nazism.

...

The risk here is that, in the absence of genuine Nazis to punch, antifa will employ its tactics against people who hold legitimate conservative political views.

Bray, who introduces his book as a “unashamedly partisan call to arms”, defends militant anti-fascism as a “reasonable, historically informed response to the fascist threat”. If that threat in Australia is more perceived that real, where does that leave antifa?

* Correction to the article: Milo is not alt-right.

Metta,
Paul.

[Sam Vara]

“You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.”

For some strange reason, that passage reminded me of this:

"Punna, the Sunaparanta people are fierce. They are rough. If they insult and ridicule you, what will you think?"

"If they insult and ridicule me, I will think, 'These Sunaparanta people are civilized, very civilized, in that they don't hit me with their hands.' That is what I will think, O Blessed One. That is what I will think, O One Well-gone."

"But if they hit you with their hands, what will you think?"

"...I will think, 'These Sunaparanta people are civilized, very civilized, in that they don't hit me with a clod.'..."

"But if they hit you with a clod...?"

"...I will think, 'These Sunaparanta people are civilized, very civilized, in that they don't hit me with a stick.'..."

"But if they hit you with a stick...?"

"...I will think, 'These Sunaparanta people are civilized, very civilized, in that they don't hit me with a knife.'..."

"But if they hit you with a knife...?"

"...I will think, 'These Sunaparanta people are civilized, very civilized, in that they don't take my life with a sharp knife.'..."

"But if they take your life with a sharp knife...?"

Luckily, the Sunaparanta people didn't know about tanks. But I love the idea of a suburban activist bully speaking authoritatively about tank warfare, and how he is keeping us free from such an inconvenience.

I've no idea how things are in Australia, but to me the pre-emptive violence of political activists in the UK has always seemed to be some kind of individual anger and hatred looking for a justification.

[Pseudobabble]

the pre-emptive violence of political activists in the UK has always seemed to be some kind of individual anger and hatred looking for a justification.

Yep, that's exactly what it is. For civilised people, the relevant distinction is whether are they doing violence.

Fascist, anti-fascist, greens, Martians, whatever - if they're doing violence, they are criminals, bang them up, job done.

[L.N.]

So the Dhamma Wheel team (I presume they are acting as a team) are now using the terms and conditions to close down open discussion.

Was this topic so scary and are members so precious that it could not be allowed to stand? Is this level of censorship really needed here?

What is up with all the fringe, alt-right commentary peppered throughout DW?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=30698

Relevant to the Topic here, including the following from the OP:

The purpose of this topic is to discuss the prevalence of trends, actions, ideologies and policies which are a threat to free speech in the 21st century.

The threats in scope for this discussion are inclusive of threats that arise from all sides of politics, from all ideologies, and from all groups and institutions.

One contemporary threat to freedom of speech is when TOS on a discussion forum are applied more strictly to those with one set of views, and more liberally to those with another set of views. The Topic in reference was locked, and I was banned for 1 week, for purportedly violating the following Rule 2 of the News section:

Whilst you may critique ideas, you may not attack or smear members who ascribe to such views, or who are perceived by you (rightly or wrongly) to be holders of those views.

While I did not attack or smear anybody, and while an administrator of this forum arguably violated TOS by analyzing my perceived state of mind, I was locked out of this discussion and prevented from contributing speech for 1 week. Meanwhile, the administrator in question continues to be free to engage in publicly aggressive, inharmonious speech which he would not tolerate from others. This is a contemporary threat to freedom of speech, to the extent individuals would like to be free to engage in speech on an equal footing on a particular forum, rather than see TOS applied strictly to some and liberally to others, depending on the degree to which the administrator agrees with their political views.

You have been banned from this board until Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:01 am.

Please contact the Board Administrator for more information.

Reason given for ban: News Rule#2. Whilst you may critique ideas, you may not attack or smear members who ascribe to such views, or who are perceived by you (rightly or wrongly) to be holders of those views

A ban has been issued on your username.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings L.N.,



May I draw your attention to: Dhamma Wheel complaints procedure

Please utilise this process if you feel there's a problem with how this forum is moderated.

Please do not publicly complain about moderation, as that is disruptive to the forum and is not the appropriate method for resolving such disputes.

Metta,
Paul.